Note 5 — AUTHOR’S PREFACE TO THE ORIGINAL SPANISH EDITION
Harold Sunderland translation
When writing the third part of my book, dealing with the Moslem elements in the pre-Dante Christian legends, I discovered from Torraca (Precursori, 331) that the influence of the Mahometan ascension over Dante had previously been suspected by Blochet. But, Blochet, in his essay, Les sources orientales de la Divine Comédie, failed to state the problem in its real terms and his hypothesis, being unsupported by documentary evidence, remained a mere surmise. Accordingly, Torraca easily disposes of it, saying:—
“Egli ragiona così; Dante conobbe le narrazioni occidentali di altri viaggi al mondo di là; ma queste narrazioni derivano dalla leggenda orientale (i.e. the Miraj); dunque essa è la fonte prima della Divina Commedia.”
The difference between this argument and the one on which the present work is based will be readily apparent to the reader.